In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United State;
by the republican party, on a platform hostile to slavery. Some Southern
states thereupon announced that, rather then submit to this, they would
secede from the Union. They called popular conventions, formally adopted
ordinances of secession, and formed among themselves the Confederate
States of America. The Northern states held that these states were still
in the Union, since, by assent to the constitution, all the states had
made an indissoluble bond. Certain border states sympathized with the
South as to slavery and secession, but they would not go so far as to
join them in maintaining a new republic by force. The border states
tried to be peacemakers, and proposed compromises. One of these is known
as the Crittenden compromise, proposed by Senator Crittenden of
Kentucky. It satisfied neither side, and a similar fate met all the
compromises proposed, even those of the peace conference called in 1861.
Michigan refused to take part in this conference. It seemed to her that
no conference could be called a peace conference worthy the dignity of
the state, when held under a threat of war, unless the North should
surrender principles upon which Abraham Lincoln had been elected. Nor
did Michigan sympathize with President Buchanan's view, that the federal
government could not constitutionally use force to keep the state in the
Union.

Governor Austin Blair took a strong stand upon the platform of an
indestructible Union. "Safety lies in this path alone," he
said. "The Union must be preserved, and the laws must be enforced
in all parts of it, at whatever cost. Secession is revolution, and
revolution in the overt act is treason, and must be treated as
such." Michigan was at peace without a peace conference. Hostile
action by the Southern states would be in the nature of insurrection
and, if need be, the army of the federal government must be called upon
to suppress insurrection. In case the regular army could not do it, the
state militia must be called out.

This sentiment was echoed by Senator Chandler, who in 1854 had
succeeded Senator Cass. "The people of Michigan are opposed to all
compromises," he said. "They do not believe hat any compromise
is necessary; nor do I. they are prepared to stand by the Constitution
of the united States as it is; to stand by the government as it is, to
stand by it to blood if necessary."

War was inevitable. On April 12,1861, Fort Sumter in Charlestown
harbor, was attacked, and a few days later surrendered. Michigan was
roused as one man. From the University of Michigan to the humblest red
school house, students listened to professors and teachers on the great
issue of preserving the Union. Speakers in every center of population
from city to hamlet spoke to thoughtful and earnest audiences of people
on the duty of every citizen to rise to the defense of the Union, even
to his last drop of blood, if necessary. In Detroit the citizens
listened to the now aged General Cass, who affirmed: "It is the
duty of all zealously to support the government in its efforts to bring
this unhappy civil war to a speedy and satisfactory conclusion, by the
restoration of its integrity of the great charter of freedom bequested
to us buy Washington and his compatriots."

When the call to arms came from President Lincoln, Michigan was among
the first to send volunteers to seal the Union with their blood. During
the great struggle that followed, Michigan put into the field nearly a
hundred thousand men. When the war was over, no state in the Union had
greater cause to rejoice over the record made by her sons, many
thousands of whom were left in soldiers' graves on southern
battlefields.

History of Genesee
County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions
by Edwin O. Wood, LL.D, President Michigan Historical Commission, 1916